LED Lighting In City Vehicles and Street Lighting

[satly]

Hi all,

I would just like to start this thread to see what the general feeling is with regards to LED lighting in city/town vehicles and streets.

Basically what would like to see in a city rescue vehicle? Would you like flashing lights on the top of the police/fire/ambulance/rescue vehicle and headlight/tail lights that stay on and would you want the LEDs to be controlled from a remote or just switched on/off on the vehicle?

Likewise with street lighting. What would you want from LED lamp posts?

I'm opening this discussion after seeing this video and wondering how popular this would be and if it was commercially available would you buy it?

Many thanks

Happy Building

Neil

Edited July 30, 2014 by satly

[lightningtiger]

Cost is a huge factor, plus where to hide the wiring and battery box for a lighting rig.

Back in the late 80's there was light and sound sets but they came with huge box sections that had to be trimmed up as back ends of fire trucks or work van with a construction vehicle.

I haven't fitted lighting to my town layout because I show it at Lego/model train shows in full light so tiny LED lights would be useless......but in truth the thought has crossed my mind.

[satly]

Hi LT,

Yes I agree hiding battery boxes etc. would be a concern, but batteries; surface mount LEDs; controllers are becoming smaller.

The builder in the video has managed to do it pretty well I think and that is a 4wide truck.

As for cost - that's what I'm trying to gauge. What sort of value do you think that would add? Not how much would it cost but how much extra $/£/€ would people be willing to spend if that came with the set?

Thanks!

[JopieK]

you use the very thin coper wire right?!

[satly]

you use the very thin coper wire right?!

Think it would be Kynar wire?

[Criga88]

I'd buy lighting kits for MOCs in an instant! I think I'd prefer being able to program my own light sequences for the vehicles though, as each one has a slightly different assortment of lights. I'm not fussed by turning them on at the vehicle, but being able to individually control groups of lights like head/tail lights or sirens with a remote would be great. As for street lighting, lamp posts and external building lights could be connected so they all come on at the same time. Having working traffic lights that run in sequence would be pretty cool too.

[melbs]

On bigger vehicles, get the tamiya led control unit modify its power source to a smaller battery and somehow hide it inside your city vehicle, choice of bulbs are white yellow orange red blue green etc.

[ER0L]

Being some kind of purist I'd buy none of such things. I often wonder why the existing lighting stuff is so rarely used in buildings and vehicles (I'm trying to do so from time to time, as you can see here).

Even if the good old Light & Sound gear isn't as sophisticated as the example shown - it works quite well, it can easily be included, and the best of it all: it's Lego. Combined with PF LEDs there are lots of possibilities to enlighten a whole city without any non-Lego stuff.